Napoli progress to the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia after coming from behind to defeat Cesena with a late winner from Goran Pandev.
Napoli came from behind to beat Cesena 2-1 with second half goals from Edinson Cavani and Goran Pandev to reach the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia at the San Paolo stadium on Thursday.
Having come from a 3-1 victory over Palermo on Sunday, Napoli started the game in a very confident mood, but a sloppy mistake from Chilean debutant Eduardo Vargas costed them the first goal in the 20th minute. The $14.8 million signing lost the ball outside the Napoli area and Stefan Popescu took full advantage of this to fire Cesena ahead.
Napoli, who have won the Coppa Italia three times in the past, pushed forward looking to draw level, and although they came close to scoring an equaliser first through Cavani and then through Vargas they surprisingly went into the break behind.
In the second period Napoli continued to pressure the visiting goal, and it soon seemed to come to the point that it was all one-way traffic.
Due to their notable aggressiveness it seemed that at any moment Napoli would draw level, and they finally achieved this in the 65th minute when a powerful Pandev free-kick from 25 yards out was only parried by Cesena goalkeeper Nicola Ravaglia and Cavani was at the right place at the right time to blast home Napoli's equaliser.
With the score all square, the flow of the game became end-to-end as both teams went looking for a late winner. Napoli were the more dangerous of the two sides and with four minutes remaining on the clock another free-kick from Pandev caught Ravaglia off-guard to just creep over the line, giving the hosts a dramatic victory and passage into the quarter-finals.
With the win, Napoli became the sixth team to reach the quarter-finals of the competition, where they will meet the winner of the tie between Inter Milan and Genoa.
Having come from a 3-1 victory over Palermo on Sunday, Napoli started the game in a very confident mood, but a sloppy mistake from Chilean debutant Eduardo Vargas costed them the first goal in the 20th minute. The $14.8 million signing lost the ball outside the Napoli area and Stefan Popescu took full advantage of this to fire Cesena ahead.
Napoli, who have won the Coppa Italia three times in the past, pushed forward looking to draw level, and although they came close to scoring an equaliser first through Cavani and then through Vargas they surprisingly went into the break behind.
In the second period Napoli continued to pressure the visiting goal, and it soon seemed to come to the point that it was all one-way traffic.
Due to their notable aggressiveness it seemed that at any moment Napoli would draw level, and they finally achieved this in the 65th minute when a powerful Pandev free-kick from 25 yards out was only parried by Cesena goalkeeper Nicola Ravaglia and Cavani was at the right place at the right time to blast home Napoli's equaliser.
With the score all square, the flow of the game became end-to-end as both teams went looking for a late winner. Napoli were the more dangerous of the two sides and with four minutes remaining on the clock another free-kick from Pandev caught Ravaglia off-guard to just creep over the line, giving the hosts a dramatic victory and passage into the quarter-finals.
With the win, Napoli became the sixth team to reach the quarter-finals of the competition, where they will meet the winner of the tie between Inter Milan and Genoa.
